I took my kids to a reptile expo, and came home with a mushroom growing kit. Hm.
Mushroom growing kit
In my defense, it wasn’t entirely an impulse buy. I have been looking at online kits for a couple months. The seller was a fungus enthusiast with a whole spectrum of mushroom selection, and was a fountain of information on taste and ease of growth and continued maintenance. I bought a pearl oyster growing kit, so helpfully assembled for the novice mycologist.
Mm mushrooms. Y’all will get updates, but know it is going to take awhile for the fungus to colonize then fruit.
My intention was to carve a pumpkin for the squirrels. I have seen many posts where people placed their Halloween pumpkins out on the porch only to have the squirrels transform the whimsical carvings into disturbing horrors. My thought was “Cool! Squirrels like pumpkin!”
“Midnight” pumpkin carved with eyes, nostrils, and mouthCarved pumpkin installed over the squirrel feeder
My squirrels are not currently interested in pumpkin. I was seeing no difference in the carving so after a few days I went for a closer look.
Pumpkin after four days
Ew. The entire inside of the pumpkin was full of black fungus. It was already starting to go soft. Ew. I knew our humidity was higher recently, but wow. Instead of a squirrel feeder I had a cavernous mouth of mold.
The Bocca della Veritas is a sculpture in Italy. The name means “Mouth of Truth”. I couldn’t get the name out of my head looking at this pumpkin.
I’m back to knitting for my next “in the car” project. I bought some beautifully dyed fingering weight merino wool by Bashful Armadillo and wanted to do a double knit project.
Bashful Armadillo yarn wound into cakes
I tried a cast on technique that makes a knit transition on the edge, but I couldn’t keep track of the edge; it kept twisting. So I did a two color double cast on instead. I uploaded a short video, mostly so I remember how I did it, because the edge was easy to handle and came out nice and stretchy.
The pattern I drew out on graph paper. I had to make some adjustments after the first round of dots because I was thinking in rows, rather than spirals. Depending on how it comes out, the finished double knit tube will either be a cowl or I’ll make it into a bag. Options.
Start of double knit polka dot project in the round
I’m pleasantly surprised how easy this project is to pick up and put down, essential qualities for a waiting project. I put markers every 24 stitches, and the pattern repeats within that frame, so figuring out where I am is fairly easy. When it is time to stop I don’t have to get to the end of a row, I just pop on a couple end caps and put the project back in the bag.
I missed a female calico in the round of feral fixing last spring. She gave birth to three kittens in my neighbor’s garage. Once I was sure the kittens were over two pounds (the minimum weight for neutering), I started up the trapping again. After checking that the shelter was still doing TNRs (Trap Neuter Release) I caught two of the kittens the night before TNR day so I could keep them away from food and water to reduce the risk of aspiration during surgery. I dropped off my youngest at school and headed to the shelter. Alas, the TNR vet was sick. No TNRs. Oh dear. I knew if I let the kittens go, I would not catch them again, so they got to hang out in the guest room while I figured out the next step.
Feral kittens hanging out in the window sill of the guest room
One of our local cat rescues has donated slots at a local TCAP, and they had two spots available for ferals the next day. Phew. Luck was definitely on my side since these slots only happen once a month, and this was the last set until the new year. Did I say “Phew”? Phew.
I was a little under in my weight estimation. The black cat (female) was over four pounds, and the orange cat (male) was over five. Vet estimated they are about 4 months old.
An intact female cat can have anywhere from 9-15 kittens a year. Well fed, healthy females tend to have bigger litters. A colony can rapidly balloon from 1 female cat to 36 in less than 16 months.
Please remember to spay or neuter your pets. Even the outside ones. If you feed them, get them fixed.
With updated rabies vaccines, our dogs received new tags as well. I stopped getting name tags made several years ago. The jingle of the two metal tags drives me up a wall. I’ve tried a number of methods to reduce the jingle: muffling with a layer of leather, riveting the name tag onto the collar, writing on the collar in sharpie, engraving the back of the rabies tag. The leather picked up a funk, the riveted name tags are difficult to put on the madrigal type collars I prefer, the Sharpie fades, and the hand engraving is not as neat as I would like (it is on my bucket list to learn to hand engrave neatly). This year, I’m trying the label maker. I’m not sure how long the stickers will stick, but they are easy to read, easy to apply, and don’t amplify the jingle. I used my label maker with the smallest type set, trimmed the excess, and stuck them on the back of the rabies tag. I added my phone number as well, but am not about to put that image out in the web.
Rabies tags with dog names printed on a label maker
Both dogs are chipped, but if they escape the back yard, it is easier for a neighbor to call the number than to have to get the dog scanned.
There is still a tiny jingle, but it doesn’t wake me at night when they give themselves a scratch.
Critters and Craft 